Skagway

We had a beautiful sunny day in Skagway.  According to locals it was the first sunny day in two weeks.

Our first adventure was riding the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad. 

  We were in the last car, so we could stand on the back platform and watch the scenery.

The scenery was pretty great any direction you looked.

 The tour guide knew exactly where to take the best shots along the route. Looking down the very center of the valley here you can see two white spots in the water. One of those is our cruise ship.

And this is the postcard shot of our train 

The train ride only took a few hours so we back in the boat by about 11:00.  Calvin had made arrangements to rent a bike and ride the road to White's Pass. Which required crossing an international border.

That left me with a long afternoon, so I joined Mardie and Alicia on a float trip through the Chilkat River Bald Eagle Preserve. We took a fast ferry to Haines, Alaska then had a perfectly delightful float down the Chilkat River. Although we only saw a couple of eagles.

We had great views on the ferry ride back to Skagway also.

Juneau

Our next port was Juneau. There are no roads into Juneau, you have to arrive by boat or plane. The reason is that Juneau is surrounded by 1500 square miles of ice.

We took a tour to the visitor's center at the Mendenhall Glacier.  We didn't actually get on the glacier but we had a good view.  We took a walk to Nugget Falls. It is a giant waterfall. You can see the glacier on the left.

The glacier creeping into the lake

After the glacier we took a tram ride to the 3,819 foot summit of Mt. Roberts. The tram and facilities at the top are operated by an Alaska native corporation. At the top we enjoyed spectacular views, a walk in the forest and crab nachos. I'm not sure how native nachos are to Alaska, but the crab was a nice twist.

Alaska Cruise

We booked a cruise to Alaska with a little trepidation, but it turned out to be a fun experience. I was worried that we would spend most of our time waiting in line with 2500 other people, but although there were a lot of other passengers I never felt crowded.

We met up with Mardie and Alicia and Cindy and Bill at Pier 23 restaurant just next to the cruise terminal. After a quick picture we were on our way.

 
You can see our ship in the picture behind us.  It was huge! I tried to take a picture but I couldn't get back far enough on the dock to get the whole ship in the frame.

 I finally had to climb a hill to get the whole thing in one picture.

This is my favorite picture of the ship.

All aboard was 4:00 and by 4:30 we were sailing under the Golden Gate.  It was a cloudy and gray day, as were more days of the cruise.

We had two days at sea before we reached Alaska.  I didn't take pictures on the ship, but we ate well, took dance lessons and did other cool things.

Our first port of call was Ketchikan. We had signed up for a tour of Misty Fjord, but at the last minute the tour operator cancelled, so we went on the Bering Sea Crab Fisherman's tour. This boat was actually featured on "Deadliest Catch.
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Where we learned all about crabs and the life of crabbers, which was cool, but...

the really cool thing is that a native tribe let the crabbers chum the bald eagles in their waters.  So we had an absolutely amazing bald eagle show. I counted 15 eagles in this one spot just waiting for breakfast.

We took pictures and pictures, but the video is amazing.

A Superior Weekend in June

We had a great visit in Superior last weekend.  We arrived in the morning and Butch picked us up from the airport.  We gathered the rest of the family and went on an outing to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Their family had camped there last weekend and the boys led the way.

It is a pretty spectacular location and we had all kinds of weather and all kinds of fun. First stop was a creek for rock throwing, dam building and a few pictures.

Lucy even took a few pictures.

This is her picture of Emily

When the weather started to get windy and cold we got out of the wind, climbed a few rocks and took a few more pictures.

Then the sun came out and we moved down the trail to another stream.

Just a beautiful place to spend a lazy afternoon.

On Saturday we got up early for a swim meet and it was fun to watch a new generation of swimmers.

Then in the afternoon we went to Lucy's dance recital.

We enjoyed a delicious dinner on their deck then took a walk to the neighborhood park where a huge gang of their friends were enjoying a summer evening. It is so fun to spend time in their world.